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All-American Comics Vol 1 78
Supporting Characters: * Adversaries: * Other Characters: * Locations: * Items: * Vehicles: * | Appearing2 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Adversaries: * Other Characters: * Locations: * Items: * Vehicles: * | Writer4_1 = Jon L. Blummer | Penciler4_1 = Jon L. Blummer | Inker4_1 = Jon L. Blummer | StoryTitle4 = "Hop Tries a New Personality" | Synopsis4 = Comic book fan Tank Tinker persuades Hop Harrigan to adopt a new more colorful personality. Hop plays along with this, adopting a costume based on a comic book character, “The Black Lamp.” Just then, notorious outlaw Maestro Killigan and his three trusted cohorts show up, in their top hats and tuxedos, for the purpose of stealing Hop’s famous airplane, the P-U2U, to use in their contraband-transporting business. To their surprise, two copies of this plane are present, and they steal both. Hop’s attempt to jump them fails when he snags his foot in his unwieldy new cape. Since they have an old dive-bomber on hand, equipped with radar, they use it to pursue the faster P-U2Us, and soon find one, flying down a gorge to avoid detection. Hop hands the controls over to Tank and climbs into the bomb rack; Tank dive-bombs the fleeing plane; Hop pops his parachute at just the right second and hits the bubble canopy just right. The fight is on! Killigan isn’t in this plane but two of his overdressed henchmen are, still, Hop is mostly winning, but the plane caroms off one wall of the gorge and spins out of control, to a deadly-looking crash. Tank lands the bomber nearby and observes in amazement as Hop crawls from the wreckage, alone. Meanwhile and elsewhere, as they hear on the radio, a P-U2U (the only remaining plane of its kind) has been spotted at Meyhicko Mine, using a complicated gadget to steal two million pesos worth of silver. Hop and Tank resume the pursuit. Soon they’re operating at an altitude where oxygen is a problem and they have only one old-style oxygen mask between them, so after a short sharp conversation Tank is directed to bail out, taking the mask with him. Hop maneuvers into Killigan’s flight path, and Killigan goes all kamikaze on him; their combined approach speeds are over 1000 mph; there’s a spectacular mid-air collision. Hop has leapt out at exactly the right second, and used his cape to snag the P-U2U’s rudder, and is hacking at the elevator trip tab, but it’s only seconds before he’ll black out and lose his grip. Meanwhile Killigan’s assistant is shooting at him with a pistol, and the P-U2U is corkscrewing toward the ground AND falling apart in mid-air. The tail section, with Hop still aboard, gets caught in a tree, the rest of the plane hits the ground, but Killigan and his hencman both survive. Tank and Hop’s closing remarks indicate that Hop is finished with the flashy costume. Closing panel of this story is an advertisement for Hop’s upcoming movie serial. | Appearing4 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * Adversaries: * Maestro Killigan ** his three henchmen Other Characters: * Locations: * Items: * Vehicles: * | Notes = *"Hop Tries a New Personality" ** Throughout this story, Tank models his own speech pattern after that of “Homberg Hackles,” an in-story homage to Doiby Dickles. | Trivia = | Recommended = | Links = }}